Monday, September 28, 2009

I had the privilege of dining with a friend from out of town on Friday night. She was up from South Carolina to attend a convention catering to guidance counselors and recruiters. It's always fun catching up with college friends.

I do not go into Baltimore much anymore. I enjoy the peaceful, nearly crime-free bucolic Carroll County versus the crime infested, traffic-snarled streets of Maryland's largest city. And upon every visit I am reminded of why I never returned to live in the city of my birth. The city that resulted in one of my neighbors being murdered, my bicycle and dirt bike being stolen. The city where someone broke into our house in the night while we slept.

I made plans with my friend to meet her at 7pm in front of the ugly Hilton Convention Center Hotel that Peter Angelos built that blocks most of the scenic view of the city from the seats of Camden Yards. I got off on Russell Street at 6:35 - plenty of time to meet her at 7pm. Or so I thought.

About half way up Russell Street we can to an abrupt halt. And I sat. And I sat. Every few minutes we were granted the pleasure of moving up a couple of car lengths. Before long it was 6:55. I wasn't sure if I was going to make it. I called her and told her to come meet me on Russell Street. I was a couple of car lengths behind the great big green container truck.

Once she got in the car we crept to the next light. We sat through several, being blocked each time by cross-traffic that went through the red light and sat there obstructing the intersection. Finally we turned onto Pratt Street for another 15 minute trek to Light Street. At each light we saw AT LEAST 4 cars fly through red lights, which reminds me of a joke:

I was riding with my friend from Baltimore and we came upon a red light and we drove right through it. I yelled, "We just ran through a red light!" "Sure", said my friend. "My brother who lives in Federal Hill does it all the time. We then got to another light near Little Italy and as it turned red we drove right through it. I yelled that we drove through another red light. Again my friend said that his brother from Federal Hill does it all the time. Finally, we came upon a green light and my friend stopped. I turned and asked him, "What are you doing? It's green?" "Well, my brother might be coming the other way."

As we drove to our destination (Hull Street Blues Cafe), we talked. I asked her about the convention and she said that the mood of this convention just wasn't the same as the one last year in Seattle. Seattle, she explained, was fun. Everyone was excited. Here in Baltimore, everyone was kind of down and out, not wanting to go out and do anything. Unfortunately, Charm City brought the conventioneers down.

Additionally, my friend mentioned that she heard that our mayor was under investigation. How fantastic. Isn't it wonderful that the visitors to our city get to hear about how our mayor (Sheila Dixon) is basically a crook?

I had a great time seeing my friend and having dinner with her. But I sure am not boasting about Baltimore. What a mess.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

While at the gym I was watching the news and being that it's usually too loud to hear it I end up just watching the pictures and reading any captions at the bottom. To my surprise, Richard Pryor was doing stand-up at the United Nations on Wednesday. I thought Mr. Pryor died years ago.

Upon further review, the comedian was not Richard Pryor, but the comical leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, the King of Comical Kings of the Arabic world.

Gaddafi didn't fail. He had his audience in the half-empty chamber rolling on the floor with such lines as the swine flu virus was created by the American military, the U.N. Security Council should be called the Terror Council, Obama should refuse to step down as President of the United States and become its indefinite leader, and he blamed the Jews for the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and John K. Kennedy.

His mindless rambling exceeded his allotted 15 minutes by an hour and 15 minutes. At one point the English interpreter had to be relieved as he collapsed from exhaustion.

Many critics were disappointed that in his finger-pointing, hate-filled diatribe didn't answer such simple questions 'how many licks does it take to get the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop?', 'Where does the pollen go?", and "Where's the beef?" I'm hoping he will follow up his most recent speech at the U.N. as a special guest of radical leftist David Letterman on the Late Show. Perhaps Letterman will allow Gadaffi to deliver the Top 10 Reasons Why Letterman and Gadaffi are Radical Lunatics.

Later that evening Gadaffi was seen raising the roof at Poly Esther's on Manhattan's West Side, delivering an impromptu karaoke version of Macho Man by the Village People. Gadaffi - Libya's greatest comedian.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

That certainly may not be the case, but she sure gives the impression that she doesn't care about the subject.

A couple of weeks ago several incidents were made public concerning the not-for-profit pro-communist social organization ACORN that brought to light their unscrupulous practices. While performing an investigation, a couple posed as a pimp and a hooker and were asking for advice on preparing taxes concerning their operation. They also wanted to know how to import underage illegal immigrant girls that would be used as prostitutes. Not only did the members of ACORN not question their intentions, but they provided advice!!

There was a lot of uproar in Baltimore where the incident occurred. Everyone was sure that the incident would be investigated and the operation would be shut down. However, Baltimore City Prosecutor Patricia Jessamy stated on WBAL radio that she had no intentions of pursing an investigation of the ACORN facility. In fact, she said that they may pursue charges against the undercover agents for violating Maryland's law against videotaping people without their consent.

We all know where Patrician Jessamy sits when it comes to doing the right things versus doing the wrong thing. One can assume that Jessamy is in bed with ACORN as it appears she is trying to shield them.

Fortunately, Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler asked and received permission from hard left-wing liberal Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley to investigate ACORN since Patricia Jessamy was sitting on her ass and refusing to do so.

ACORN is now under federal investigation for similar questionable activities across the nation. Additionally, ACORN was stripped of federal funding. However, radical liberals Barney Fwank of Massachusetts and John Conyers of Michigan have requested an investigation into the Constitutionality of Congress removing funding from communist-leaning groups like ACORN.

We can only assume that Patricia Jessamy, Barney Frank, John Conyers, and the folks at ACORN are all a bunch of nuts.

Not since the 1969 when a drunk Ted Kennedy drove off of bridge that killed Mary Jo Kopechne has there been as much hoopla in our country as the H1N1 virus, better known as the swine flu. However, unlike Ted Kennedy who did not report this incident until the next morning, the H1N1 gets more reporting than anything else in this country - even more than Baltimore City Mayor Sheila Dixon's multiple ethics violations and investigations.

Many absent-minded Americans wonder when the pandemic will arrive and destroy all mankind as we know it. While there is a lot that we don't know about the swine flu, there is much that we do know.

We know that this is not the first swine flu outbreak in this county. In fact, there have been several in the recent past. There was the mass hysteria in 1976, a less hysterical one in 1988 that killed one person, and another in 1998 that injured several pigs. In 1976, F. David Matthews, the Director of Health, Education, and Welfare (now called the Department of Health and Human Services), infamously predicted that the 1976 strain would kill one million Americans. He was off by 999,999. Only one person died.

We also know that the overwhelming majority of people that are contracting the swine flu exhibit mild flu-like symptoms that require them to watch The Price is Right for a couple of days before returning to work or classes.

We also know that more people are killed by seasonal flu every day than the total number of deaths associated with this year's H1N1 strain. However, the seasonal flu is like the Baltimore Orioles - no one gives a crap.

However, as Obama's White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel so arrogantly stated on CBS' Face the Nation, "Never allow a crisis to go to waste. They are opportunities to do big things." Emanuel's communist tendencies are indicative of the Obama administration's thinking and have pushed our government to spend billions of dollars for a vaccine to help stop the spread of this virus.

So here is my prediction:

First - if the government does nothing, a few thousand people will get the virus and maybe a few dozen Americans will die - the overwhelming majority of those with existing illnesses and compromised immune systems. We will have saved billions of dollars.

Second - the government spends billions of dollars educating people about the benefits of washing their hands and getting a hurried untested flu shot to the market, a few thousand people will get the virus and a few dozen will die, and thousands of others will suffer the unintended long-term effects of an untested vaccine. However, by using this method, the government can say, "Look, our coordinated efforts helped prevent this from being a far worse pandemic that it could have been. We've made a strategic investment in the health of our working class families and that investment has paid off."

In the eyes of any politician, the second option is always better than the first.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Like Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley and Baltimore County Executive Jim Smith, my coworkers like to be in the dark.

Every morning I enter my section of the building and all of the lights are turned off. I am not the first person in my department to get to work in the morning. In fact, I'm probably about 10th. However, no one will turn on the lights. It drives me nuts.

And like my coworkers, Baltimore County Executive Jim Smith refuses to do anything and wants to stay in the dark. I refer to Ridgely Middle School in Towson. To my shocking surprise, this public school has no air conditioning. What school has no air conditioning? Martin O'Malley has been spending what seems to be hundreds of billions of dollars on education including new school construction and they cannot install air conditioning into an older school?

The Ridgely PTA invited Martin O'Malley and Jim Smith to attend a discussion on what can be done, but both self-centered liberals refused to attend. Representatives from the school claim that portions of the building easily reach over 100° and nearly all of the building is 10° warmer than outside.

WBAL cornered Jim Smith in another area of Towson trying to steal money from elderly disabled veterans and asked him about the school. He said, "I am working with the school system to address those concerns..." He wants to address those concerns? Outside of installing air conditioning what does he plan on doing?

On WBAL's coverage a student said that when the school has the students take standardized tests that are for the county's benefit, the students are moved to an air conditioned location, but when the students take tests for their own benefit, they must suffer in the sweltering heat of their class room.

I suspect that O'Malley and Smith may have refused to attend the event because the school is already hot and both politicians are full of hot air which would only make the situation worse.

This is just another example of why some of our elected officials like Smith and O'Malley need to be removed from office. Like my coworkers, they prefer to stay in dark and this is something that we the people should not tolerate.

For once I totally agree with socialist-leaning President Barrack Obama. He was caught supposedly off the record calling Kanye West a jackass. I couldn't agree more!

Kanye the jackass - you took the microphone from:

a) the girl that won the award

b) a 19 year old girl

c) Taylor Swift

And in an interview with Taylor Swift on The View yesterday, Miss Swift was asked if Kanye the Jackass has apologized to her for the embarrassing intrusion in her acceptance speech at the MTV Video Awards. She said he (Kanye the jackass) hasn't said a word to her. (though he (Kanye the jackass) finally called her after this revelation) I guess in Kanye the Jackass' mind pretending to apologize on Jay Leno's Show counts as a real apology. Have I mentioned that Kanye West is a jackass?

Monday, September 14, 2009

In an ironic twist, Playboy founder and stud Hugh Hefner is filing for divorce from his wife Kimberly Conrad citing irreconcilable differences. What could be irreconcilable with him? I could understand if she was divorcing him. How easy is it to be married to a guy who sleeps with 15 naked 25 year old girls? Was Hefner really upset about something? I mean, if my wife let me sleep with 15 naked 25 year old girls I'd never leave her.

I'm not pretending to understand the new healthcare bill. I haven't read it. But I'll bet Martin O'Malley's job that your Congressmen or Senators haven't read it either.

One of the points that I've heard and read is that if you are an employer with at least 50 employees you will be forced to offer health insurance. And as an individual you will be forced to have health insurance one way or the other.

So think about this. What if:

1) I am a sole-proprietor? I must purchase my own health insurance. Very expensive.

2) I have 50 employees? I must offer them health insurance. Very expensive.

3) I own a part-time business run on the weekends with 50 employees who all work part-time (less than 20 hours over the weekend)? Must I offer them health insurance?

4) I own a part-time business with 50 friends who are gainfully employed and who already have health insurance through their full-time job? Do I still need to offer them health insurance?

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Big Daddy Obama gave his much-anticipated fatherly socialized healthcare reform speech last night. Did you watch it? I watched some of it. And I certainly felt like he was hollering at me for not being a good listener. Seriously, did I leave the refrigerator open again? Or did Michelle find out that I found his cabinet of girly magazines in the basement and now he's taking it out on me?

Some highlights of what he said:

1) Socialized healthcare will be self-sufficient. Do you mean self-sufficient like the Post Office, Amtrak, Medicare and Medicaid? Or self-sufficient like the tax payers will pump billions of dollars into this new government program in order to sustain it?

Directly from the liberal talking points:

Won't add a dime to the deficit and it is paid for upfront. This is because it will reform the healthcare system and curb healthcare cost growth. (This tells me absolutely nothing) invests in quality improvements (sounds like increased spending), consumerprotections (more increased spending because of the required government oversight), prevention, and premium assistance (more spending). The plan fully pays for (itself )...with a new revenue including a fee on insurance companies that sell very expensive plans (this sounds like a tax. Let's penalize good insurance plans???)

Requires additional cuts if savings are not realized (because we know the savings will not be realized. Come on - the government is running it! This is the same organization that pays $600 to procure a hammer) Under the plan, if the savings promised at the same time of enactment don't materialize, the President will be required to put forth additional savings to ensure that the plan does not add to the deficit (let's see - need to cut costs - like......denying coverage? Not paying doctors and hospitals? How else do you cut costs in a healthcare plan? Can't raise premiums - they're already government subsidized.)

This is a disaster waiting to happen! If you're a smart person coming out of high school or in college, would you want to go to medical school? You will not live comfortably like in the days of yore. Currently Medicare and Medicaid do NOT pay the full costs of procedures and care provided. The government system pays only a portion of the costs. The shortfall in payment is made up somewhere. Where would that be? Oh, yeah. Everyone else has to pay higher costs for their medical treatment. So currently everyone who is not relying on the government for their healthcare pays artificially higher medical costs, most of which is covered by our own private health insurance companies.

And now the government wants to run an even bigger portion of the healthcare system and reform the system and remove waste? I think I found the waste - the government bureaucracies that interfere with the current system. How is the government plan going to help doctors and hospitals? What about all of the other people that are employed in the industry? This can only hurt them - less money received for treatments means less money to be spent on buying new equipment, hiring more nurses, building new facilities, etc....

This reminds me of the old joke - how do you know when a politician is lying? His lips are moving.

3) Whether or not you like the President's speech (this President or any other) - be polite and do not heckle him, (read South Carolina Congressman Wilson). You're just making an ass of yourself and your party. And did you see Obama's face when Wilson called him a liar? Obama was PISSED! I could almost read what he was thinking: "My white mother who raised me by herself would be really mad if I ran out there and gave Congressman Wilson a beat-down right now."

4) Socialized healthcare will not impact your current healthcare insurance. I don't believe it. My current health insurance (which I think is very good) has to be efficient and provide a profit to it's shareholders. I'm okay with that. However, if they started treating their members like crap, they can leave the plan. It's in the private health insurance companies' best interests to provide good high quality care to their members.

With the "public option", there is no profit motive. It can be as inefficient as it wants to be. See Amtrak and the Post Office. And if people opt for the government-subsidized healthcare plan, the private health insurance companies will lose their economies of scale and will not be able to compete and will eventually go out of business. THEN you will be forced into the government's socialized healthcare plan.

Additionally, one of the provisions of the socialized healthcare plan is that if your employer makes any changes to it's current healthcare options, it will be FORCED to also offer the socialized plan. How does that NOT affect my private insurance company? This requirement DIRECTLY affects my private health insurance company.

Following in the footsteps of fellow Montgomery County politician Kumar Barve, Maryland State Delegate Herman Taylor was acquitted for driving while intoxicated. Although he was in his idling vehicle (which means it is in operation). And he was intoxicated.

I wonder if being a politician exempts you from the law. I mean, you write the laws therefore when you get in trouble for breaking the laws you get a break, right? Do you think if Eludius was arrested for driving while impaired that he'd get off so easy? Doubt it.

It certainly helps Delegate Taylor's case that he's for strong drunk driving laws. But then again, isn't every politician who's arrested for being impaired in favor of tough drinking laws?

We had our baseball draft the other night. No - I didn't draft anyone named O'Malley. In fact, I didn't draft anyone named Busch, Miller, Obama, Pelosi, or Reid. I actually want to win. Therefore, I drafted guys named:

RiversManningWestbrookL. WhiteC. TaylorOchocincoRoyalCurtisGates

and some Giants. Unlike the next session of the Maryland General Assembly, this should be a good football season!

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Not exactly. But I am happy to report that we made our final payment on the luxurious 2004 Ford Freestar minivan. That's an extra $375 per month. I consider this van a collector's item as Ford no longer produces a minivan.

Our van comes equipped with balding tires, cup holders full of trash, hardened ice cream streaks, crayon-stained carpeting, crushed cereal, lollipop sticks, captains-chairs with permanent indentations from the car seats, a red scratch down the passenger side, a white scratch on the passenger side mirror, 2 sliding doors, one of which will not open on its own, and a faded fake chrome grill that is impossible to clean.

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

We're going to pass a Health Care Plan written by a committee whose head says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn't read it but exempts themselves from it, signed by a president that also hasn't read it, and who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that's nearly broke. What possibly could go wrong?

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About Me

This blog is a satire. None of the things that appear to be false are true. Most of the facts are correct. Many of the opinions are mine. None of the opinions or false statements are to be taken seriously.